Champagne Country

Champagne is the most famous wine on earth, the most difficult to make, the most frivolous and the most expensive. Other superlatives would be justified. Champagne is the wine of wines, used for the launching of ships, romances and marriages, all of which founder occasionally, perhaps from the wrong champagne. It's used as an aphrodisiac by aging roués and as an alibi by ladies of all ages who later wonder how on earth it could have happened. Champagne has that effect. It doesn't make you drunk--just exhilarated and irresponsible. During the Naughty Nineties, men would drink it out of the slippers of ladies who were no ladies. A pity, really, if it was good champagne. "Unless specified in detail, all drinks are champagne in Lottie's parlor at Shepheard's Hotel," Evelyn Waugh wrote about the Roaring Twenties in Vile Bodies.

Champagne is synonymous with wealth and luxury, and it is highly taxed. Old people drink champagne, often on their doctor's advice, to feel younger, and young people drink it when they feel they can afford it. For a long time, champagne was said to be capable of reviving the dead. Madame de Pompadour, the great friend of Louis XV, called champagne "the only wine that leaves a woman beautiful after drinking it." And desirable. It's a wine for all seasons, the perfect aperitif, good with most foods, a renowned hangover remedy. Last year, 102,000,000 bottles were sold, twice as many as ten years ago, but there is never enough of it.

Sparkling wines are made in many countries, but there is only one champagne. Though some foreign imitations are called champagne, the genuine article comes only from the champagne country, a region in northern France strictly delimited by the Law of July 22, 1927. "The Champagne" is located between Reims, Château-Thierry and Châlons-sur-Marne, mostly in the departments of Marne, Aube and Aisne, where wines have been cultivated since the days of Caesar. About A.D. 92, Emperor Domitian ordered the vines destroyed because his soldiers drank too much wine. Later, Emperor Probus restored the vines, whereupon he was slain by his ungrateful soldiers. He is now venerated like a saint by the champenois, as the region's inhabitants are called.

Champagne has been called the wine of the gods, the Devil's wine and the wine of love. There is little doubt about the last appellation. Casanova praises it in his memoirs. Napoleon said, "Champagne banishes etiquette." Lady Hamilton and Viscount Nelson often drank more of it than was good for them. The pleasant tradition remains strong in England, the biggest champagne consumer after France. King Edward VII drank nothing but champagne with his ladyfriends at Maxim's. Legend has it that one Monsieur Welby Jourdan drank over 40,000 bottles during his life, which lasted 94 years. Greta Garbo, in Ninotchka, got publicly tipsy on champagne served in terrible sherbet glasses. Marlene Dietrich is said to have had a clause in her Hollywood contracts giving her the right to champagne, unlimited, any time. In the champagne country, the great names are known as Messieurs du Champagne, though some of them wear skirts, as does Madame Bollinger, the grande dame in command of her firm.

Today, there are over 16,000 growers in the champagne country. Some own small properties all over the region, as a protection against scattered hailstorms. Many growers, independently or in cooperatives (récoltants), make a small quantity of their own champagne and become manipulants as well. Most sell their grapes to the big firms, the shippers, who may or may not have their own vineyards. Several houses of great prestige own no vineyards at all but buy their grapes. The wine derives its characteristic taste from the region's chalky soil, which reflects the sunrays to give the grapes their quintessential flavor. The forests serve to regulate the moisture in the air, and the year-round temperature averages a mild 52 degrees. These form the ideal conditions for a wine of quality rather than quantity.

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One readies the region of Champagne, some 90 miles east of Paris, by way of Château-Thierry or by the Route Bleue from Luxembourg or from Alsace via Verdun. Throughout history, this tranquil region has experienced the brutality of war. Reims, the coronation city of the French kings and site of a magnificent cathedral, is the region's celebrated capital. It was here that Saint Rémi, the venerated bishop, baptized and crowned Clovis I, and Charles VII, escorted by Joan of Arc, was consecrated king of France in 1429. Reims features such attractions as the basilica of Saint-Rémi, a fine mixture of Romanesque and Gothic styles; the Musée des Beaux-Arts, with its incomparable collection of Corots; the chapel of the Foujita-Lalou Foundation; and, naturally, the cellars of the champagne firms. Epernay's proud Musée de Préhistoire Régionale and the royal establishment of Moët et Chandon, the biggest firm of all, are also located nearby. Between the two cities, there are beautiful excursions, if you like woods and rivers, old abbeys and elegant châteaux. In the nearby Argonne, there are the haunted battlefields of the First World War. Distances are short and there are few good inns in the small places. Make your headquarters in Reims--the best hotel in the region is the Lion d'Or--and return there in the evening.

The ideal time to visit is autumn. Cruising leisurely down the Champagne Route from Reims to Epernay, one notices that the quaint villages are virtually deserted. Everyone is out in the vineyards, harvesting the grapes. Of the total area of 75,000 acres, 45,000 acres now bear vines. Everything is specified by law, and strict regulations prescribe a limited quantity and permanent quality of the world's finest sparkling wine. Close pruning and, later on, trimming and harrowing are done by legally defined methods. Only three kinds of grapes can be used. In the north, around the "mountains of Reims" (actually, 600-foot-high hills) and in the Valley of the Marne, there grow the black Pinot and black Meunier grapes, with midnight-blue skins on the outside, lusciously red on the inside. The juice is white, however, because it is immediately separated from the grapeskins; elsewhere, the same grapes are pressed and then steeped with the skins, thus producing the deep-red burgundies of the Côte-d'Or, such as Chambertin.

South of Epernay, there is the Côte des Blancs (White Coast), famed for its elegant white Chardonnay grapes. Out of 8800 pounds of black or white grapes, no more man 2666 liters (596 gallons) of juice can be extracted in 13 successive pressings for the making of genuine champagne. The surplus juice is used by the growers for a petit vin that cannot be called champagne. "We can survive only by applying the strictest standards," says Monsieur Joseph Dargent, the general secretary of The Comité Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagne (C. I. V. C.), the industry's self-regulating body.

In addition to some 3000 growers who make small quantities of their own champagne, there are 144 recognized shippers, but only 25 famous houses form the Syndicat de Grandes Marques. Eighteen of them sell more than 1,000,000 bottles each a year. It is a kind of club, without clubhouse and written bylaws but with severe standards of ethics. Most member firms are at least a century old and each inscribes the year of its foundation on the label. (The oldest, Ruinart, was founded in 1729, Moët et Chandon in 1743.) Certain practices, such as blatant publicity, are not permitted. The Syndicat has an obsession with "the dignity of the great commerçants." One is proud to be in the company of one's peers and a little snobbism is part of the game.

Hence, the great firms are actually "controlled" by their competitors. If they don't deliver, out they go. Several firms that were famous 20 years ago have faded away; no one talks about them anymore. There are no new firms. Once, all firms were family-owned, and today, most of them still are. Among them are Piper-Heidsieck, Taittinger, Pommery-Greno, Bollinger, Lanson, Lepître. Each of the houses maintains a strong sense of tradition, although the younger executives are quickly becoming aggressive merchandisers.

After a short time in the champagne country, the visitor may begin to note that more than a few great houses in Reims consider themselves "artists"; these take a patronizing view of those makers (faiseurs) in nearby Epernay, where the two biggest firms, Moët et Chandon and Mercier, happen to be located. Yet the Epernais claim that their town is "the cradle of champagne"--and history substantiates that statement. For it was there, in the Abbaye d'Hautvillers, that the Benedictine monks first exploited the natural effervescence of the wine and put the bubbles into champagne. However, even that claim is now disputed in Reims. On one claim, however, the two cities, Reims and Epernay, are united. It was most elegantly stated (continued on page 156)Champagne Country(continued from page 122) by Voltaire, in champagne's greatest commercial:

This wine where sparkling bubbles dance

Reflects the brilliant soul of France.

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Champagne history is a combination of fact and legend. In answer to the eternal query, "Who did put the bubbles into the bottle?," many say it was Dom Pérignon, who renounced the world in 1653 and joined the Benedictines in Hautvillers, where he died in 1715. Pérignon was a blind man with a fantastic sense of taste and smell. As cellarmaster of the abbey, he experimented until he found that corks tightly drawn in the bottle would retain the naturally expanding gas without being forced out. Previously, each bottle had been plugged with tow and a little olive oil dropped on top to keep out the vinegar bacteria. A tight cork, Pérignon discovered, permitted the so-called second fermentation, which occurs in the bottle and is essential for a true champagne. Some years ago, Moët et Chandon named its most famous champagne after the blind monk.

Champagne is a blend of different wines, from 10 to 30, all from the tightly circumscribed region. They are artistically married, so that each firm's champagne will have the same characteristic color, bouquet and aftertaste year after year.

The difficulties with making champagne begin at harvest time, which usually starts late in September and lasts from 10 to 15 days. The exact date is determined by laboratory tests of grape acidity. Teams of men and women--local people aided by students, miners, workers imported from elsewhere--pick the bunches with scrupulous care, cutting away bruised or imperfect grapes. The pickers fill willow baskets; sorters examine the grapes and throw out those that are unripe, overripe or spoiled; porters and loaders take the baskets on trucks to nearby press houses (pressoirs) that belong to individual growers or to some 100 cooperatives.

At the Goutte d'Or cooperative in Vertus, a village at the southern end of the White Coast, one could observe men in blue overalls and high boots bringing in baskets with white grapes and throwing their contents into the presses. Others were arranging the grapes (le marc) in a flat mass. The work was fast and frenetic.

"We must be fast," said Monsieur Gregoire, president of the cooperative. "The grapes must be pressed before their skins are broken. When we press black grapes, the must [juice] might be tainted by prolonged contact with the skins. Nineteen seventy was a wonderful year for us. An enormous quantity and very good quality." Some people say it was one of the biggest harvests of the century. Everyone made more money in 1970 in the champagne country than in the past 10 or 15 years, but quantity created problems. Some firms didn't have enough space to store all the wine. Moët et Chandon scrubbed out four Marne river barges and turned them into fermentation vats.

Monsieur Gregoire said the must from the first pressing, tête de cuvée, obtained after two hours, makes the best wine. The juice is quickly transferred to "purifier" casks and drawn off into tank trucks for transportation to the fermenting vats of the larger firms--in a hurry. The precious juice must not start fermenting in the trucks.

In the cellars, a little cane sugar dissolved in wine is usually added to the juice before fermentation, just enough so that the wine will contain 12 percent alcohol. The first, "tumultuous" fermentation formerly took place in oak barrels but now is mostly performed in modern tanks made of glass or stainless steel, at temperatures from 95 to 104 degrees. For a few days, the juice boils and bubbles, emitting deadly dioxide (which can cause dangerous gas build-ups in the cellars). After three weeks, the young wine is racked off several times to make it clear, exposed to colder temperatures, which causes the sediment to be precipitated, and then drawn off once more.

Now begin a number of delicate operations peculiar to champagne. Soon after the new year, the experts in each champagne firm meet in clean, odorless blending rooms to compose a cuvée--the blend that will match their own house types. It's a tough job. At that point, the wines are acid and ugly, totally unrecognizable from the frothy champagne that will eventually result from the blending.

"One is gazing into the future, like looking at a ten-week-old baby and trying to guess whether he'll someday win the Nobel Prize," says Monsieur Jacques Lepître, the head of Champagne Abel Lepître in Reims. Though his is a big firm, Monsieur Lepître still personally attends to all operations. At Moët et Chandon, Count R.-J. de Vogüé leaves the job to his experts. In the large firms, the marriages are attended by master tasters, by sales directors, who know what the public wants, and by financial experts, who decide how to price the wines. They often disagree, but in the end they always come up with a miraculous mixture that will once more taste--and cost--like the champagne of the firm. Often wines from the current year are "balanced" with older wines from the reserves, to add subtlety, style and quality. Only in certain blessed years, when the harvest is of unusually high quality, are no reserve wines added.

After the blending, the mixture is fined (filtered), racked a final time and a second dose of sugar is added. The wine is then put into bottles, where the sugar ferments to alcohol. This is the second fermentation, lasting three months and producing the carbonic gas that creates the delicate bubbles, the sign of a great champagne. The smaller the bubbles (the bead), the finer the champagne. It's a slow process: A wine needs from three to four years to mature.

The bottles are stored in the immense underground cellars of the champagne country. The enormous catacombs underneath Reims were excavated by the Romans as chalk mines. Nearly 150,000,000 bottles are stored there. No one should miss the opportunity to see the cellars; all the large firms offer free daily tours. Pommery-Greno in Reims has the most extensive cellars, more than ten miles of galleries ventilated by air shafts. Taittinger, a firm that produces almost 2,500,000 bottles a year, has chalk cellars 100 feet underground. The house owns large vineyards, which protect it against the vicissitudes of the trade (for there are seldom enough first-rate grapes) but which create problems for Claude Taittinger, who runs the firm.

"During a few critical weeks, late in May, when frost may hurt the young plants, and again in June, I often don't sleep at night," he says. "In the middle of the nuit blanche [white night], I look at the thermometer. When it gets down, I telephone my people. A few hours of cold could undo a whole year's work. No wonder everybody [in the district] was happy after the harvest in 1970, a record-breaking 130,000,000 liters of wine, compared with only 70,000,000 liters the year before."

The 8,000,000 bottles stored in the cellars of Taittinger remain at a constant temperature of 48 degrees; there is no atmospheric humidity. During the two World Wars, German troops ransacked the cellars of hundreds of thousands of bottles. After the Liberation, Claude Taittinger often played golf with Dwight Eisenhower, who lived on the same street and ran the final phase of the war from SHAEF headquarters in Reims. Don't fail to visit the Collége Technique de Reims (the little red-brick schoolhouse) on Franklin Roosevelt Street, where everything has been left in the War Room of SHAEF as it was on May 7, 1945, when the Germans signed the surrender.

No one can explain why, on occasion, the young wine in the bottles ferments a third time. This is called the change of life; and it can be a very valuable phenomenon, as the Lanson firm can attest. During World War Two, the Germans carted off a huge quantity of Lanson champagne--batches that happened to be undergoing the change of life. Even Hitler's retinue found the wine undrinkable at that stage. When the war ended, French troops, led by a young Lanson, found the stolen wine in the cellars of Berghof in Berchtesgaden. It had fulfilled the second fermentation, was magnificent--and returned to France.

The second fermentation disperses a sediment throughout the wine in the bottle. To get rid of it, the remueurs (stirrers) walk past the racks (pupîtres) every day for four months, giving each bottle a slight twist to the right and a slighter one to the left and tilting the bottle slightly downward, so that the sediment is gradually collected in the neck of the bottle. The remueur must look at the wines, using a candle; he treats the bottles individually, as though they were his children, working with both hands at once. His job will never be done by machines. An expert remueur handles 30,000 bottles a day. Toward the end of the remuage, the bottles are standing almost on their necks and the sediment rests against the bottom of the cork.

The next, most ticklish job is to extract the cork with the sediment, without losing the carbonic gas that creates the bubbles; otherwise, champagne would go flat. The job is done by the dégorgeur (discharger), who needs a five-year apprenticeship. The cork is pulled and flies out into a hood, the deposit shoots out, a little wine is lost, the dégorgeur sniffs the wine to see whether it's in good condition--all this in less than two seconds. Nowadays, the larger firms freeze the neck of the bottle briefly for about an inch above the cork and the sediment is ejected in a plug of ice. Then the space in the bottle is filled by a machine with a dosage of fine cane sugar soaked in champagne liqueur. The percentage of sugar depends on the type of champagne. Brut (literally, "rough"), the driest, contains not more than one percent; extra-sec (extra-dry), one to two percent; sec, two and one half to three percent; and demi-sec, God forbid, has four and one half to six percent sugar. (Champagne doux, even sweeter, is no longer made by the best firms.) Brut is the finest champagne precisely because it contains very little sugar to hide imperfections. In the sweeter champagnes, the sugar often disguises a lack of quality. Such wines are popular in Spain, Venezuela and Mexico. The Italians are beginning to switch from dry to extra-dry; the Germans still prefer dry champagnes. The Americans are beginning to enjoy brut, the favorite of the English.

All the champagne needs now is to be corked. Only the best, toughest Spanish corks will be used in this delicate operation. A machine puts the metal cap on the cork, tightens the wire muzzle around it and forces the cork in--just the right length. If the cork goes in too far, the muzzle won't hold, the cork might get loose, the bubbles would fizz away. The corks must have the word Champagne stamped on the surface at the end that is in the neck; in the case of vintage champagne, the year must also be stamped on the cork. The bottle is then labeled and the champagne rests until it is ready to be shipped.

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During the harvest, everyone works hard from early morning until nightfall. There is no time for celebrating. The fêtes champenoises, held in the days when labor was plentiful and competition less brutal, have disappeared. "Thirty years ago," says Claude Taittinger, "there was some folklore in the champagne country. A hundred and fifty people would live in the large dormitories near our press houses. Often there would be dancing; I myself often opened the evening. There were often some gitanes [gypsies], who were very gay. Nowadays, the workers come from all over Europe and North Africa. This year, we have Finns and Algerians and, unfortunately, there is no friendship among the groups. The French keep apart as well; no more fun, no dancing." At the end of the harvest, the cooperative or the individual grower may give a small party, une fête de cochelet (probably from cochon de lait, the suckling pig that used to be served). Outsiders are rarely invited. On January 22, the day of Saint Vincent, the winegrowers' patron, and at the end of June, on the day of Saint Jean, the patron of the cellar-men, there are some minor celebrations, attended by gaily dressed champenoises. The champagne girls are attractive--and prudent. "When you're brought up on champagne," a pretty one told me, "you don't lose your head quickly."

The quality of the champagne depends on the grapes and on the people who make the wine. Every bottle goes through more than 100 hands before it is ready to be shipped. (At some firms, each worker gets two bottles a month free, each foreman or executive gets six; many sell their bonus wine.) Consequently, the best champagne is always expensive. Last year, one kilo of good grapes cost one dollar; one and a half kilos are needed to make a bottle of brut. The experts who make champagne are highly paid and the capital investment is tremendous. "Millions of dollars' worth of champagne is stored in your cellars and you wonder how much more money you could make by investing these millions elsewhere," a shipper says wistfully.

American-style marketing methods remain somewhat suspect in the champagne country. No big buyers come to taste the wine, as in Bordeaux or Burgundy, because it's known that the important firms make the same champagne each year and a special cuvée in a vintage year. The large shippers have their own agents in various parts of France, as well as inspectors to supervise them. The largest French customers are popular night clubs. The Lido in Paris, offering show and dinner, including half a bottle of champagne, for 98 francs ($19.60), buys over 150,000 bottles a year.

Almost two thirds of last year's output will be drunk by the French, who have always known a good thing. (Ironically, 50 percent of all Frenchmen have never tasted champagne.) The best foreign customers after Britain are the U.S., Italy, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland and Canada. (At the end of the line is Bulgaria, where 942 bottles were shipped.) The United States bought 4,500,000 bottles in 1969, fewer than the 5,000,000 bought in 1910. One reason for the decline is that much of the 13,700,000 gallons of sparkling wine made in the U.S. today is respectable, if not excellent. "A bottle of French champagne costs twice as much as a bottle of California champagne," one shipper concedes. "I don't blame the American customer for taking the less expensive wine. Probably he wouldn't taste the difference."

Indeed, champagne is the world's most widely imitated wine. Monsieur Dargent of the C. I. V. C. spends much of his time trying to stop foreign firms that produce "Spanish champagne," "California champagne," "Canadian champagne" or "champagne made in Japan." The last, Monsieur Dargent claims, tastes as though it were made of potatoes. When he complained to the producer, the Japanese said, "Oh, you also make champagne in France? Go ahead, it doesn't bother us at all." In London, Monsieur Dargent had to sue a firm that put out a champagne-shaped bottle with the label The Champagne of Bubble Baths, 1800 Vintage. Obviously, anything with the name champagne on it will sell.

"Someday," says Monsieur Dargent, "the Japanese are going to sell their 'champagne' in China. Millions of Chinese who have never heard of French champagne will think the Japanese make the real thing. Very dangerous, because it's public opinion that gives meaning to a word. What would the Americans say if we tried to sell a French Cadillac? Unfortunately, champagne is a mark of origin, not a registered trademark. We are trying to find a way of protecting the name, but it isn't easy."

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The French call a wine complet if it is perfectly developed and virtually without shortcomings. A Blanc de Blancs, champagne made from white grapes only, is often complet when it comes from Cramant, Avize or Mesnil, small towns along the Côte des Blancs. Blind tastings, with the labels removed from the bottles, which always cause great excitement in Bordeaux and Burgundy, are rare in the champagne country, for it is almost impossible to distinguish more than three different champagnes. Recently, the head of a famous firm joined a few colleagues in tasting several bottles of unlabeled vintage champagne. One man, who rated a certain champagne second-class, was startled when he discovered it was made by his own firm.

The thing to remember about champagne is not whether one bottle is better than the next. Good champagne is always good. But a very good champagne remains elegant and lively in your glass after half the bottle is drunk. The factor that distinguishes a fine champagne from a well-made sparkling wine is that the fourth glass is as good as the first. Admittedly, some vins mousseux are acceptable--provided you drink only one glass. But after the third, it seems to get heavier and almost blocks your throat.

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Paradoxically, the champagne country is not a gastronomic paradise. When a champenois wants to eat really well, he goes to Paris. The Guide Michelin, still the most reliable culinary chart for France, awards two stars to only one local restaurant. The Royal Champagne is located on a hilltop on the road between Reims and Epernay. The patron, Monsieur Desvignes, offers filets de sole au champagne (made with brut) and poulet sauté au bouzy (prepared with a vin rouge nature). In Epernay, the Berceaux features délice de sole berceaux and its version of poulet sauté au champagne. The city of Reims (population 160,000) has a one-star restaurant. Le Florence, owned by an Italian, Signor Zoboli, serves delicious ravioli and cannelloni and a concoction of crawfish tails called gratin de queues de langoustines au ratafia. (Ratafia is a liqueur made of champagne wines.) And there is La Chaumière, owned by Gaston Boyer and his son, Gerard, who has worked in the kitchen of Lasserre, a great Paris three-star restaurant. The Boyers make a delicate feuilleté d'escargots à la champenoise (snails in a light pastry shell with cream and mushrooms) and an omelette du curé (the omelet of the priest), satanically filled with lobster and a cream sauce. The restaurant of Reims's Lion d'Or hotel also has a good reputation.

All restaurants in the champagne country boast outstanding wine lists, serving the best champagnes and the fine vin nature. The PDGs--the présidents-directeurs-généraux, the big shots of the big firms--take their friends and customers to the restaurants to sample products of their competitors. Yet champagne has never become an important ingredient in the grande cuisine, primarily because, when used in cooking, it loses its greatest charm--the bubbles. Some outstanding restaurants serve dishes made with champagne; however, this is mainly for prestige. Lucas-Carton, the lovely old restaurant near the Madeleine in Paris, features a bar (sea bass) au champagne. Lasserre prepares saumon braisé au champagne, Drouant has soles soufflés au champagne and Prunier offers lobster cooked with dry champagne. The finest champagne dish of all is turbot au champagne at the Pyramide in Vienne, Isère, the contribution of the immortal chef Fernand Point, whose love for champagne was perhaps excessive. (Slices of turbot are poached in the bubbly with crushed tomatoes and parsley for about ten minutes, then placed on a serving dish. The sauce is reduced, cream and seasonings are added and it is poured over the turbot.) Point also created the choucroute, sauerkraut braised with champagne, sprinkled with Blanc de Blancs, and served with ham and bacon slices, sausages and potatoes. One can almost taste the bubbles.

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Champagne belongs in every well-organized bar. A glass of brut is the ideal drink before any meal, and that includes breakfast. In the champagne country, they say the best time of the day for a flute of champagne is midmorning. The bubbles prevent you from drinking it too fast. Why anyone would add something to such a perfect liquid is difficult to understand, but it is done. There is the champagne cocktail, created in Paris in the Twenties (a small cube of sugar, a drop of Angostura, the glass filled with champagne, decorated with a slice of orange). Rather idiotic, but there it is. Or the champagne club (gin and cognac with champagne); the black velvet (equal parts of champagne and Guinness, beloved by the British), recommended for hangovers; the champagne cup (champagne, cognac, soda water, maraschino, lemon peel--absolutely crazy); the champagne sidecar (lemon juice, cognac, Cointreau, shaken and strained, with champagne added); and the Riviera cocktail, which Raymonde, my bartender friend on the S. S. France, made for me on a gloomy morning: half a glass of fresh orange juice, filled to the brim with brut champagne. It had been a hard night's night, and afterward I saw things in a soft orange glow. Raymonde explained that the orange juice was added as liquid nourishment. "You can't live on champagne alone," he said. Why not?

Champagne should be chilled but never iced. It must not be shocked by being cooled too fast. Again: Wine is a living thing. It may be chilled slowly in the least cool section of the refrigerator or in a bucket of ice and water: The best temperature at which to drink it is from 42 to 48 degrees. If it's too cold, much of the finesse and fragrance are lost. If it's too warm, it may become heavy. The bottle should be opened gently, without losing the precious froth. The cork should not fly across the room, because much of the sparkle may be wasted. Unwire the muzzle; slant the bottle, with a clean napkin placed between your hand and the neck of the bottle; hold the cork firmly with the other hand and slowly rotate the bottle away from it. (This works better than twisting the cork away from the bottle.) If the champagne is properly chilled, there will be a discreet burp and some foam--but into the glass, not all over the rug. Wipe the rim of the neck with the napkin. Taste the first glass, to make sure it's all that it should be. When pouring, hold the bottle at its base; pour slowly into the tilted glass.

The glass is very important. It should not be saucer-shaped, like the glasses used for sherbet. (These disperse the bubbles and ruin the champagne.) It should be tulip-shaped, with a base from which the bubbles rise, concentrating the aroma, prolonging the effervescence. The rim should be bent slightly inward, so the glass will retain the bead. The glass should be chilled and only half filled. To stir the wine with a swizzle stick is plain idiocy, though many Frenchmen can be observed dispersing the bubbles this way. It took at least three years to get the bubbles in and it takes less than four seconds to get them out. If you don't like the bead, buy still white wine and leave the champagne for us.

There are no bargains in champagne country, no matter what anyone may tell you; fine quality must be paid for. The size of a firm's output is meaningless. Krug produces only 400,000 bottles a year, but its champagne is appreciated by connoisseurs and sommeliers in great restaurants for its reliability. As to which you may prefer, it's a matter of taste. Some like blondes and some like brunettes, and who could turn down a pretty redhead? In the case of champagne, though, the rosés, which were once very fashionable, are overrated. The color is often produced by adding some still red wine from the champagne country, such as Bouzy.

The great houses can be divided roughly into two groups. Some make the lighter, brighter, racy champagnes that the French like. Others produce the heavier, golden-colored, corsé (full-bodied) wines preferred by the English, Americans, Belgians and Swiss. A few firms make both. Abel Lepître produces the fine, light Blanc de Blancs and Crémant, but also owns Georges Goulet, known for darker, heavier wines.

To each his own. The French like gay, modern labels; the British prefer the old, classic labels. Champagne is sold in standard bottles (26 fluid ounces), in quarter and half bottles, in magnums (two fifths of a gallon) and in jeroboams (four fifths of a gallon). In the old days, there were even bigger bottles for great banquets, up to the nebuchadnezzar (the equivalent of 20 standard bottles). The most practical sizes are bottles and magnums.

The trend appears to be going, as in food and perfume, from the heavier to the lighter products. Houses making champagnes that are lighter and brighter, fresh and "easy to drink" are, in alphabetical order: Laurent Perrier, Lepître, Piper-Heidsieck, Pommery and Taittinger.

The houses that specialize in heavier, darker champagnes, goÛt anglais, are: Bollinger, Georges Goulet, Heidsieck Monopole, Krug, Moët et Chandon, Perrier Jouet, Pol Roger and Veuve Cliquot.

For champagnes that are somewhere in between, there are: Lanson, Mumm and Roederer.

These lists are not complete nor objective, but my own. Some people consider Mumm a light wine, somewhat acid; it's very popular in hot countries. Some think that Roederer makes rather fresh and fruity wines. The only way to learn about champagne is to taste it.

Several houses make special cuvées, often in "antique" bottles, that are premium quality at a premium price: Réserve de l'Empereur (Mercier), Dom Pérignon (Moët et Chandon), Florens Louis (Piper-Heidsieck), Cuvée Grand Siècle (Laurent Perrier) and Comtes de Champagne (Taittinger).

One needs no cellar to store champagne: Any cool, dark cupboard will do, provided there is minimal temperature fluctuation. The bottles must be placed horizontally, so that the cork is covered by the liquid and doesn't dry. After bringing home some champagne, let it rest for a few weeks. Try not to keep it for more than two years, because after that some wines may lose their sparkle and the color deepens. Many firms now sell their wines earlier rather than late, to get their financial investment back, but the leading houses sell their champagne when they are at their best. The lighter Blanc de Blancs and Crémant may be drunk earlier than the heavier wines.

Is it worth it to pay higher prices for vintage champagne? Many people seem to think so. They want to be sure about the year of their champagne and say that vintage champagne may easily keep a dozen years. True. Others claim that the best nonvintage brut of a famous firm is better than the vintages of a less famous one. Also true. If you are in the Onassis tax bracket, by all means buy the vintage bottlings of your favorite firm. Otherwise, the dance of the sparkling bubbles is open to all.